Vile

by Keith Crawford

  “You’ll show me who I am?” Nathaniel asked, holding his hand out to the Kindred Prince.

  “Better. I’ll show you who I am.”

  It lunged through the bars and grabbed Nathaniel by the wrist. There was no flash, no shift, no warping of form: just, suddenly, two Nathaniels faced each other through the bars. The one in the cage snatched its hand back, then the other suddenly lunged, crashing through the bars.

  “What did you do!” one of them shouted

  Elianor had no time to be transfixed. As soon as the ledger was in her satchel, she jumped and grabbed the highest rung of the ladder she could manage, swung her leg round, and clambered upwards. She glanced backwards to see the cage smashed open, the two Nathaniels fighting over a fallen sword, and she had already lost track of which was which. She did not look back.

  Chapter 67

  The ladder shook as Elianor ran up it. At the underside of the open trapdoor, she hurled the satchel ahead, then threw herself up after. The trapdoor was still blocked by the massive oak workbench they had moved in place to make sure that the door would not swing shut and trap them in the pit. Without Nathaniel’s help, it was too heavy for her to move. Her twisted leg, her wounded side, her swollen feet, all conspired to rob her of the strength she needed. She could still hear fighting from beneath her in the pit.

  The prison cell: Seren, Begw and the other woman, whatshername? Elianor grabbed the long metal bar from besides the revolving torture table and planted it under the half-hinged prison door. It fell with a crash; she had to duck out of the way to avoid being struck by her own lever. Begw, the curly-haired guard, stirred, the crash enough to shock her into wakefulness, and started to struggle into a sitting position.

  The sound of fighting had stopped. Suddenly, the ladder began to shudder, heavy boots running up the struts.

  Elianor went past Begw to Seren, unconscious but alive, dressed in the same grey prison robe as the others but with a bawdy red scarf around her neck. Elianor was about to start towards the third women when Begw spoke.

  “Don’t bother,” Begw said. “Sara Tafal. She died last night.”

  “Begw, isn’t it? Can you run?”

  “I’ll run the hell out of here!”

  “Quickly! We must close the trapdoor!”

  Elianor helped Begw to her feet and ran to the workbench that held the trapdoor open. Then she noticed that the guard had pinpricks in her arm. Thick black lines followed her veins back up to her shoulders. Begw stumbled as she stood, her eyes not quite focused, but still managed to grab the metal bar up from the floor, jabbing it like a pole arm. Elianor cursed and tugged at the workbench table blocking the trapdoor. Begw joined her, looking for leverage with her bar. They couldn’t get it off the floor, couldn’t move it at all.

  “Wait!”

  Nathaniel clambered up through the trapdoor. He was drenched in sweat and had a new cut on his face: his shirt had torn open and the number 3 tattoo identified him more clearly than his voice or his shape or the way his blue eyes pled for her trust.

  “It’s me. It’s me.”

  “What happened down there.”

  “A Kindred trick. I think it thought to replace me. I hurt it, but that won’t slow it for long.”

  He still had his sword sheathed. He saw her look, then stared at her through narrowed eyes. “I’ve seen that look on other Republicans. You’re making a list in your head of whom to kill.”

  No point in denying it. She needed time to think. Was this Nathaniel in front of her, or the Kindred Prince? How could she tell? And if even some of what the Kindred Prince had said was true, then Seren and Begw might already be Kindred, might be better killed and left in the pit than brought back into the light. Even if they weren’t corrupted, they had heard too much, knew too much for Elianor to ever be safe while they were alive.

  The ladder cracked against the rim of the hole. The rhythmic thud, thud, thud snapped their attention away from each other and towards the pit. Something was coming. And the reality of it was that while it might be the real Nathaniel before her, or the Kindred Prince in disguise with the real Nathaniel left in the pit, if she waited until they were both out then she was certain to have allowed the monster to escape.

  “Elianor?” he said.

  “Get Seren up and go,” Elianor said to Begw. “Nathaniel, help me close the trapdoor!”

  Begw dropped the pole and staggered back to the prison cell. Nathaniel jammed the pole underneath the workbench table and he and Elianor heaved. Elianor roared, great gobbets of spit launched from her mouth. The table turned and fell on its side with a crash.

  The other Nathaniel’s arm shot out from the pit.

  “Wait!” He shouted. “It’s me!”

  Elianor kicked the trapdoor shut. The metal disk swung with a great thud. The arm blocked it. The second Nathaniel’s hand stretched in shock like a snake caught in the trap. The door did not seal.

  “Run!” Elianor shouted, then stamped on the trapdoor with all her strength. “Run!”

  Bone snapped, and black fluid spilled. She could feel its injuries; feel the pain in her own arm. She had always known she was better than the people around her, better than other cadets and other pupils, better than her father. Here it was. Proof. Black blood. And Carada had called her arrogant.

  She stamped again and again. The other Nathaniel didn’t make a sound. Radius and ulna cracked and splintered beneath the metal rim. The trapdoor wouldn’t close. The arm wouldn’t sever. Begw had made it to the archway out with Seren in her arms. The first Nathaniel paused; his teeth bared in animal ferocity. Then he dropped the bar, grabbed his backpack filled with books and bottles, and he too fled.

  The fingers of the other Nathaniel curled, one at a time. Black blood drizzled from the tips. Then the other Nathaniel pushed back. Elianor ran. She heard the trapdoor slam open. Still she didn’t look back. She stooped to grab her pack, slung it over one shoulder contrariwise to her satchel, and took off up the stairs after Begw and the first Nathaniel.

  She caught up with Begw quickly, the weight of both Seren and her sickness too much for her to keep pace. With hardly a pause, Elianor took Seren out of her arms. Seren’s face was swollen up one side, blotched with a familiar black pattern. Begw reached for the wall to steady herself.

  “Keep moving,” Elianor snarled.

  For a moment, Seren’s weight was such Elianor couldn’t take another step. She thought about dropping the pack, or the satchel. No. No more failures. She pushed upwards. Two steps at a time. Don’t give your muscles time to complain, keep breathing, don’t let your heart break out through your chest, take the weight through your hips, keep moving. She caught up with Nathaniel in the Abbot’s chamber. He glanced at her then drew his sword and went back for Begw. The curly-haired guard caught up moments afterwards.

  “Out through the door and turn left,” Elianor panted. “It’ll take you out into the quadrangle. Head straight for the church. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t be afraid.”

  Because if the Kindred are waiting outside, being afraid won’t make any difference.

  Begw limped out towards the tower door. Elianor shifted Seren’s weight in her arms. She could feel the young woman breathing. She wanted to shake her, get her on her feet and running, but with so little time, it was too much of a risk. Easier to carry her.

  “How close is…are… How close is he?” Elianor said.

  “Close. What about the Black Dog? Our brother?”

  Not my brother.

  “Magistrate!” Begw shouted.

  Elianor tucked Seren to her chest and barrelled forward, ignoring Nathaniel, just trying to get out of the tower. She ran through the open door. The spring sunshine was so bright that to start with she could see nothing. Begw had stepped to one side, her fists raised pitifully before her. Seren tensed in her arms. Begw pointed to the centre of the quadrangle.

  The Black Dog stood beneath the tree. It had raised itself onto two legs, high enough that its shoulde
rs lifted between the branches, obscuring its face within the weave of dead wood. Its hips were wrong, of course, more suited to all-fours than upright. But while its arms and legs were elongated and powerful like those of a horse, the black hair thinned across his chest and abdomen, and his hanging genitalia marked him clearly as a man.

  Nathaniel slammed the door behind them and staggered into place behind her.

  “Gods,” he said. “Daniel.”

  “I know you’re awake,” Elianor hissed at Seren. “Stand or fall.”

  Elianor tipped Seren to her feet, guided her to a standing position, but she crumpled like a sheet from a washing line. Elianor let her go. The heel of her boot slipped on snowmelt covering the stone paving. She raised her hands and opened her palms out towards the Black Dog.

  “I know who you are, Daniel. We don’t have to fight.”

  The other Nathaniel would arrive at any moment. She stepped over the wall, one leg then another. Snow-covered grass crunched under her boots.

  “You thought I came here to hurt your family. But I didn’t. I came to help.”

  As she spoke, she kept on, step by slow, cautious step. She looked up at the sky.

  The Kindred stood on the roof of the cloister. Mabyn’s patrol were there, hardly recognisable as human anymore, their battered armour warped around reshaped limbs and twisted forms. The monks were there as well, silently watching through dead eyes. Had they been alive before, when they were broken corpses strewn about the nave? The Kindred Prince had said the proximity of death intensified the desire for change, but how could they have wanted this? How could this change be better than death?

  The Kindred looked down at them but did not move. The Black Dog waited, heavy pants of breath blowing steam into the frosty air. There was a long cut across its chest, the mark of Kindred claws, healing into a red pucker right before her eyes. Begw, after a quick check that Seren was uninjured, hopped over the wall and came after Elianor.

  “We need your help,” Elianor said to Daniel. “Nathaniel needs your help.”

  She reached back with her hand, waving for Nathaniel to join her. He didn’t come. Instead there was the sound of boots slapping on stone, rapid in the opposite direction.

  Chapter 68

  The acrid taste of adrenalin surged to the back of Elianor’s mouth. Nathaniel had bolted. The White Feather, the inspirational revolutionary, his bottle-filled pack bouncing on his back, ran for the church door and left Elianor, Begw, and Seren to face the other Nathaniel and Daniel the Black Dog.

  There will be a reckoning, Elianor promised herself.

  Three long, slow knocks sounded from inside the tower door. The other Nathaniel had announced his arrival.

  The Black Dog growled and lowered its shoulders, ready to jump. Its face emerged from the branches. Its jaw stretched to a snout and its ears elongated to points, but its cheeks were flat and carried sad round eyes. The cold blue eyes of the Vile family. Just like Elianor’s. Did all the tainted children in her ledger have the same blue eyes?

  “That’s why you didn’t kill me on the first night we met,” Elianor said.

  It stepped out from beneath the dead tree. The left-hand side of its mouth split into a snarl that revealed long, sharp teeth. Elianor stopped in her tracks. It took all her strength not to step back. All her strength and the sound of the tower door opening behind her.

  “I know how far you’ve gone to protect your family. But this isn’t Nathaniel. You must feel it.”

  It was a total guess. She had no way of knowing. For all she could tell, it was the Kindred Prince hightailing it away from the monastery with a bag full of bottled blood, and this man with the busted arm was the one she had straddled by the watermill at the Brek family farm.

  “I wouldn’t trust her,” the other Nathaniel said. “I imagine she said something similar to Derec Garn.”

  “But you can still save the others. If you help me now.”

  There was nothing else she could do. Elianor took Begw by the arm and guided her in a circle as they both turned towards the tower door. The Black Dog stepped closer, close enough that if she reached back, she would touch its chest. She drew her sword and faced the other Nathaniel.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said.

  He stood beneath the arch; his sword not even drawn. His smashed right arm dangled at his side, fingers twitching like a dying spider, black blood drooling to the stone.

  The Kindred on the rooftops fell to their knees and bowed.

  Nathaniel stepped over Seren then, one foot at a time, over the wall, into the snow.

  “What are we going to do?” Begw said.

  “Shut up,” Elianor hissed. “Fight the first one that attacks.”

  She spread her weight between her feet, with nowhere to move between the devil and the deep blue sea. All she had was a clumsy shortsword, and a faulty pistol that could only be fired with two hands.

  “Are you Nathaniel? Or the Kindred Prince?”

  He smiled—that same, disarming smile—and without thinking, she lowered the point of the blade.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Both, maybe, maybe more.”

  He looked at his smashed arm.

  “The other me must be taking this very badly, with no way to know who he is. It’s amazing how a smashed limb helps concentrate the mind. As for me, well, I finally have proof of who I am, and I think Soronghast rather underestimated the strength of my personality.”

  Elianor re-raised the point of her sword, but he just kept on talking.

  “There’s no such thing as a Kindred Prince. When Soronghast touched me, it shaped two identical copies of us both. It’s…noisy…in my head now. I know it thought it was the only way it could escape—if it were me as well as it—because it knows the High Shaper cares about me. I know what it did is forbidden, to the extent that the Confederacy forbids anything.”

  “So, you’re Nathaniel.”

  “You aren’t listening. We’re both Nathaniel. And we’re both Soronghast.”

  “And that’s forbidden by the ‘Confederacy’? By this High Shaper?”

  “It’s harmful. Kindred don’t kill Kindred. But you should see it, Elianor. In my memories—there’s so much more out there, in the West, more than we ever imagined, so much more to see. Don’t you want to see what’s out there, Elianor?”

  “I’ve seen enough. I won’t let you leave.”

  “I won’t let you stop me.”

  He drew his sword. It was a good foot longer than hers, fine steel honed to two sharp edges. He balanced it in his left hand, totally unfussed that his other arm was broken, then swung the blade in two swift arcs. His smile was brighter than the flash of steel.

  “Daniel, help us,” Elianor whispered.

  The other Nathaniel advanced. The Black Dog whined, then retreated, back beneath the dead tree. Around the outside of the quadrangle roof, the Kindred stayed bowed in prayer, a low murmur accompanying the sound of their foreheads thumping the tiles.

  “There are just as many monsters who wear a human face,” Nathaniel said. “Isn’t there at least an equal chance something better waits in the West?”

  He stopped, just far enough away that he couldn’t reach her with his sword, and lowered the tip until it touched the snow. His eyes were that exact same blue as the sky above.

  “There is no Truthsense, Elianor. There is no magic. Just things we don’t understand and the power to understand them. Don’t you want power?”

  Of course I want power. I just don’t want it from you.

  “So, what is this?” Elianor said. “I come with you or you kill me?”

  “I don’t want to kill you.”

  Did she want to kill him? Did she want him, like she’d wanted him at Tannyr’s farm?

  “Fine with me,” she said, and attacked.

  She didn’t bother with the niceties of swordplay. She drove at him, swung her blade direct at his, ran steel along steel then stepped inside and thrust her face as if to bi
te his throat. Maybe she would. But he didn’t even blink. Nathaniel pivoted around the blow, using her momentum against her, and bunched his fist ready to punch.

  But Elianor had seen him fight—if it was him she was fighting—and was expecting this, knew his preference for using his hands, elbows, and feet as well as his sword. She took the blow, right on the temple, focused through the black pain, the weight behind her eyes, and pushed forward. Begw lunged at him. He knocked her aside with the hilt of his sword then with the same hand punched Begw in the gut so hard that she immediately crumpled.

  It was all the time Elianor needed. Her feint had brought her close, face to his chest, and she stabbed straight upwards with her shortsword. He ducked back, twisted to ram his elbow into her head, slowed by his unusable right arm. She released the hilt and pushed the pommel, dropping her shoulder and rolling away. There was a spray of blood from Nathaniel’s face.

  She went for her pistol. He stumbled, his forearm on his face where she had cut him. She would only need a fraction of an instant to fire. But he was laughing. Her knees crunched into the snow. She pulled back the hammer. He surged forward and kicked her hand. The pistol span away. She grabbed his ankle, but when she tried to lift, he smacked her across the face with the flat of his blade. It caught her eye, and everything went red. The sky bent above her.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not done.”

  Nathaniel tossed his sword so that it stuck into the ground, seized her by her shirt, and lifted her up out of the snow. She tried to stamp on his knee but couldn’t muster any real force. He headbutted her, once, twice. Elianor tried to spit but only blood rose in her mouth. He headbutted her again. There was a great white pain and a ringing noise in her ears. He was still holding her up.

  Then he kissed her, and the blood from the cut along his jaw smeared across her cheek.

  “You are far too interesting to kill,” he said.

  He opened his hands and kicked her so hard that she soared back into the snow, right at the feet of the cowering Black Dog. She lay there, her chest heaving, blood in the vomit and no strength left to resist.